Chessy, France

We’re at the French Open! West Coast Swing that is, in Hotel New York in Disneyland. We got here midday, danced a while, and watched the Strictly Swing competitions which were quite good. I noticed the fellows dressed sharp, and wore ties. The follows looked good too. They do a lot of dips and neck wraps. The novice dancers struggled with musicality but the better dancers had it down. We took a workshop too taught by Torri Smith and Max. I must confess I was pretty timid about getting dances, though I did put myself out there. It’s hard to ask for a dance when you’re new, and have no friends or connections and can’t speak the language. We went to our room early because we still haven’t beaten the jet lag, but we’ll cut the rug tomorrow. Getting here is another story, with Norm in the hero role! Last night I couldn’t sleep as we hadn’t bought our train tickets to Saint Jean Pied de Port yet, and we had a troublesome connection to make in Bayonne. The tickets sold online wouldn’t work because we’d arrive a half hour too late for the last train. We figured if we went to the station at Monteparnasse, we could buy a through ticket that would get us there. So we woke early having decided to pop on down to the station before going to play with the French swing dancers. After a super espresso and chocolate croissant breakfast, we took the metro to Garre de Montparnasse which was dauntingly huge, with Norm taking the navigational lead. We were able to buy the tickets through to Saint Jean with only an hour layover in Bayonne. We were back to Mont Blanc within an hour or two to pick up the luggage then off we trundled to the Disneyland Park. My fancy pack and rolling bag worked perfectly but we had to cross two rivers, then failed to locate the correct train station. Perseverance paid off, and Norm’s brilliant map skills because we did find the station, which was huge, then the correct platform arriving by train A at the end of the line. Next we hiked a bit around the Disney complex, found our convention hotel and settled into our room. We found lunch, wraps, in the Disney Village. And after lunch, we danced. Getting here took half the day. It was a superb dress rehearsal for the pilgrim life.